A Man of Honor

by Lloyd B. Abrams

It was our congregations’s monthly anniversary and birthday celebration. Not only was my birthday in August, but also our thirty-seventh anniversary. So when my wife prevailed upon me to come to services this morning, I couldn’t refuse, though I did happen to show up late.

Our dwindling congregation was lucky to get a minyan – the quorum of ten required to recite prayers every morning – and even on Shabbos – and so there were a diminishing number of birthdays, anniversaries and joyous events to be celebrated.

I tapped Charlie Mufson on the shoulder before I sat down in the pew in front of him. “Oh, there he is,” he said, louder than needed. “I thought you were dead.”

His voice carried throughout the small sanctuary, but the rabbi-in-training who was reading the Torah didn’t bother to look up. He, like almost everyone, was used to Charlie’s outspokenness, comments and interruptions. Most everyone revered Charlie, especially the synagogue president, because of Charlie’s generosity and his inability to refuse the occasional appeal for an extra donation. Still, I never enjoyed having attention being drawn towards me.

I turned around to him and yanked at Charlie’s tallis, and he laughed – a deep, loud laugh. “Hey, Lloyd … how old are you, anyway?”

“Eighty-four … just like you, Charlie” – even though I had just turned sixty – for me the dreaded six-0.

“Bullshit. How old are you, really?”

Several congregants who were oblivious enough to be offended started turning towards us. “Sssh, Charlie. I’ll tell you later.”

After the service, we folded and hung our tallises and walked into the anteroom where wooden tables had been set up. Paper plates and plastic forks and spoons were spread out atop blue plastic sheeting cut from a roll.

Some of the congregants washed their hands, and then waited until the brachas – the blessings – were said over the wine and the two large loaves of challah. I stood next to Charlie, who had poured himself a small plastic cup of Dewars from the bottle stored behind the bar, kept mostly for him. The rest of us sipped from thimble-sized cups of Manischewitz or grape juice after the blessings.

“Hey, Charlie …” He turned towards me and again shook my hand. “I heard that you made it with one of the Spanish girls from the party here last night.” The congregation often rented the ballroom for weddings, parties and quinceañeras. “Tell me, Charlie, was she even over twenty-one?”

“Don’t start in again with that,” and he started to laugh his large belly laugh.

“But I thought that you loved your senoritas – you know – your senor eaters?”

“I told you, Lloyd. Don’t start in with me.” And he laughed again.

I loved making him laugh his joyous, booming laugh. I knew that his life had been and was still hard. And I did feel close to him.

The last time I had hugged him, at my daughter’s wedding the previous summer, his body felt as though it had stiffened. It felt like hugging my aged Uncle Marty, the year before he died. Charlie was a big guy, but he was more frail than he appeared.

But Charlie was a big guy, in bearing and in spirit.

– This story, originally written in 2006, was resurrected from my “Works in Progress”

– Rest in Peace, Charles Mufson, 1922-2009

Originally written / August 27, 2006 .. Rev 4 / April 9, 2020

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April 9, 2020 … Copyright © 2020, Lloyd B. Abrams